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Game Manual 2.0/Government
Overview There are several forms of government with which you can rule your civilization, but none offers complete control. Under autocratic regimes your citizens readily support the military, but reduce your trade income through corruption. When granted representative government they are efficient and productive, but demonstrate against the use of military force by becoming unhappy. The possible forms of government are: * Despotism. Lacking written words or laws, you rule simply through the force of personality -- whose effect decreases rapidly with distance from your capital, leading to heavy corruption. * Monarchy. Written laws and uniform religion offer the monarch power enough to support an active military while keeping corruption from overwhelming trade. * Communism. With science and industry come the tools to impose military control over the workers and implement a planned economy, while suffering only a slight but uniform level of corruption. * Republic. The people respond to freedom with increased trade under this ancient form of government, but disapprove of military action. * Democracy. Modern participatory government and free enterprise eliminate corruption, allowing trade and science to thrive -- but free citizens agitate most strongly against warfare. You begin your career as a despot, with your cities suffering heavy corruption until you gain the technology to impose more effective government. You may change governments as often as you like, once another kind is available, by selecting the start revolution command. This plunges your empire into anarchy for one to five turns, after which you may select any available form of government. Most players race to achieve the republic and democracy so they can expand their cities through rapture and boost their science output with expanded trade. Monarchy and communism are popular choices for players embarking on extended military campaigns. Features of Governments Several properties should be noted in addition to those in the table: * Under anarchy you lose control of the ratios that allocate trade, which cities spend entirely on luxuries for themselves. * A democracy will revolt and plunge into anarchy if any city remains in disorder for two turns. This makes democracy dangerous for those not attentive to city happiness. * Cities under democratic or communist rule produce partisans when taken from their original owner, if their owner knows communism and gunpowder and at least one player has discovered guerilla warfare. * Diplomats and spies built by communist regimes get automatic veteran status. * Diplomats and spies cannot subvert cities and units from democratic opponents * Despotism has a -1 penalty whenever a tile produces more than 2 units of food/production/trade, except while celebrating. So, for example, irrigated grassland will have +2 food instead of +3 food. * Under republic or democracy, celebrating cities with at least +1 food will increase their population each turn as long as the conditions are met. This is know as 'rapturing' and a powerful way to grow cities quickly. The Capital and Civil War The city containing your palace is your capital. Should you build another palace elsewhere, its city becomes your capital and your old palace disappears. As the center of government, corruption is least in your capital and increases with distance from it. (But remember that communism produces the same corruption everywhere, and democracy simply eliminates it.) Should an enemy capture your capital, you will be given a new one in another city, but your empire could experience civil war. This risk increases with each city in disorder at the moment of capture, and decreases with each city that is celebrating. Civil war is catastrophic -- you lose as many as half your cities to a new computer-controlled opponent who takes with him all units and wonders owned by those cities, and also half your treasury. Civil war is not tidy -- the lost territory is likely to be randomly distributed throughout your empire. After one turn in the state of civil war (whose properties are similar to those of despotism), both you and the new opponent enter anarchy. Small civilizations of ten cities or less cannot suffer civil war, and under similar circumstances simply fall into anarchy instead. ---- Next: Technology Government